Boing Boing reader Simon says,
Regarding the post about helping Katrina survivors – SANS ISC is reporting that there are a number of scams going around about this (via spam), and that these sites look very dodgy: katrinahelp.com katrinarelief.com katrinacleanup.com. They recommend only giving money to recommended charities listed here.
And as good as the intention behind some of the Katrina-missing-people-locator sites may be, I'd also advise proceeding with heightened privacy awareness. Treat any website that asks for your personal data and that of your family members with caution, and know who you're dealing with. It's easy to make dumb decisions when you're afraid and worried about the status of missing pals or loved ones.
Reader comment: Jon Adams says,
In response to the phony Katrina aid scam websites, I found a few things via WHOIS and some Googling.
All the aid sites are registered to somebody named Demon Moon (not exactly the name of somebody looking to aid the disaster relief) located in Yulee, FL. Another site registered to this domain is bosco.us which seems to automatically forward you to rentalink.com/indexpvt.html for a brief period and then, oddly, to 32097.com.
There's also the fascinating rentalink.com where these sites seem to reside which states they "use proprietary automated techniques and software to search for and register generic domain names for websites, portals and client projects."
The email addresses associated with this person (aside from those on the aid site) are demonmoon@usa.com as well as fsbo@YuleeHome.com and FirstCoast@usa.com. I've sent a phony email to this person hoping to get a response and further identify them.
Maybe this info can be of some help to somebody with more resources or know-how than I. I'm just so disgusted that, not even after, but during such an insane tragedy, somebody would be attempting to profit off this.
I would love nothing more for them to quickly be called out publicly on their actions.
Reader comment: Andrew says,
Now while I don't doubt that the sites being mentioned are terrible scams perpetuated by evil people, just because someone happens to have a non-white-American name like Moon doesn't imply that people who are not white americans won't care about what's happening, and wouldn't want to help in any way they could.
